


Plastic Magnifying Glass

by dyllpickless



Series: Diego, Eudora, and Rosa Patch [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Eudora Patch is Alive, F/M, Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Good Parent Grace Hargreeves, Nail Polish, Stuttering Diego Hargreeves, Transgender Diego Hargreeves, Vigilante Diego Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 19:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20512157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyllpickless/pseuds/dyllpickless
Summary: Diego finds out that Eudora has a little girl, and then has to do a bit of babysitting.Okay, so maybe he would have to call his mom. So what? He wanted to help Eudora. That was it. This had nothing to do with the age of the little girl and the last time he and Eudora slept together. Not at all.





	Plastic Magnifying Glass

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, trans men can father their biological kids because I said so

“You have _got_ to be shitting me.”

Diego turned away from where he was inspecting the footprints leading into the house. “Eudora, I can explain,” he said quickly.

“You need to leave. Now.” She set her hands on her hips and set her jaw. Despite her being a few inches shorter than the vigilante, she always commanded the room. This was no different. “Next time I see you at one of my crime scenes, I swear I won’t hesitate to tase you on the spot.”

“Just, wait. I think you missed—”

“I know about the blood spatters behind the couch, and we’re getting somebody out here to analyze the ashes in the backyard.”

What would have surely been a sarcastic response died on Diego’s tongue when a small blur of bright pink rocketed past him and thudded into Eudora. “Mommy! Mommy! Guess what!”

Eudora’s face softened immediately as she knelt down and pulled the little girl into a hug. “What?” She adjusted the bow that sat in the girl’s hair, then gently ran her hands over her face.

“I found ants!” she squealed, waving around a small plastic magnifying glass in her tiny fist.

Eudora gasped in response. “Wow! And did you show Aunt Bea?”

Diego’s eyebrows drifted ever-higher on his forehead when a woman in a police uniform—presumably Aunt Bea—ran up. “I’m so sorry,” she panted. “She slipped away. I couldn’t catch her. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Eudora cooed, kissing the little girl’s forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Diego piped up, his forehead deeply creased. “I’m confused.”

Eudora sighed and stood up. “Rosa, meet Diego. Diego, meet my daughter: Rosa.”

“Your d—”

Suddenly, Eudora’s radio crackled to life. She stepped away for a few moments, before turning back to the group. “I have to go,” she said urgently. “It’s a… Well, legally I’m not allowed to tell you. Bea, you were specifically requested to come with me.”

“Wait, what about Rosa?” The woman looked down at the little girl, who was peering up at Diego through her magnifying glass.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Diego spoke up. “I can take her.”

Eudora looked at him, stunned. “Are you sure?” she asked.

_No,_ Diego thought. He had a grand total of zero experience with taking care of children. But there was something that made him nod his head. Okay, so maybe he would have to call his mom. So what? He wanted to help Eudora. That was it. This had nothing to do with the age of the little girl and the last time he and Eudora slept together. Not at all.

“Okay, then,” Eudora sighed, shooting him a grateful smile. “Thank you. I owe you. Just… maybe feel free to bring your mom into this, okay?”

Diego chuckled, watching Rosa squat down to inspect a particularly interesting blade of grass. “Do you not trust me, Eudora?”

“It’s Patch,” she muttered immediately, setting a hand on her hips and raising an eyebrow. She cleared her throat and added, “And no, I don’t. But I don’t have time to find a babysitter, so you’re my only option.”

“I’ll call my mom,” Diego reassured with a gentle smile.

“Okay. Just… no knives, nothing dangerous, no blood, or anything like that.”

“We’re…”

“At a crime scene. I know.” She shot a look at Bea. “But she’s never seen anything a normal kid hasn’t seen besides a few extra police cars. And I don’t want that to change.”

Diego held up his hands. “I get it. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now go fight some crime.”

Eudora shot him a smile and knelt back town to get Rosa’s attention. “I have to go for a bit, okay, Princess? Uncle Diego here is going to hang out with you. Does that sound fun?”

“Yeah!” she shouted, with a bit too much volume and cheer to be appropriate for the scene of a homicide. Not that she knew that.

She pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, then stood up. “Thank you so much.” She looked at Diego with a sort of gentleness that made his heart flutter. She looked like she was going to say something else, but her radio tore through the atmosphere. “Bea? Let’s go.” She sent Diego one last look before heading out, leaving him and her daughter alone.

“So… What do you want to—”

“A ladybug!” Rosa gasped and leaned down so close to the ground he was surprised she didn’t fall over.

“Wow. Really?” He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then knelt down beside her. “You have a really good eye,” he said softly.

“I have two.”

It took Diego a moment to realize what she was saying. When he did, he had to press his lips together so he wouldn’t laugh. “Yes, you do.”

“Watch out,” Rosa warned. “This is a pee ladybug.”

“A what?”

“It’s yellow. Yellow ladybugs always pee on you.”

“Oh.” Diego nodded through the bewilderment. “Thank you for the warning.”

The attention span of children, Diego soon found out, is incredibly short. Rosa bounced from telling Diego about how she once found an orange ladybug, to talking about a new bow Eudora bought her, to singing him a song she learned in preschool. Thankfully, Diego was finally able to call Grace and ask for her help. She happily obliged, and gave him some suggestions.

That was how Diego ended up standing outside of a nail salon, carrying Rosa with one hand and her plastic magnifying glass in the other. He took a deep breath and headed in, pushing past the little nigglings of discomfort in the back of his mind.

“One manicure, please,” Diego said with a smile. He paused when Rosa made a small, unhappy sound. “What’s wrong?”

“What about you?”

Diego winced, but he knew there was no way to get out of it. “Two manicures,” he corrected.

The woman at the counter huffed out a small laugh, but nodded and entered in the information. “Your wait will be about ten minutes. Is that alright?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Diego brought Rosa over to a small table, where she immediately started picking through the color samples.

“I like these,” she said eventually, holding up seven starkly different colors.

“Those are very pretty,” Diego commented. “Are you going to get all of them?”

“Yeah.” She tried lining up the fake fingernails on her own, but they were way too big. She didn’t seem to notice, though, as she held her hand out in front of her. “What about you?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Diego said, swallowing down a bit of bile. “Do you think you could pick a color out for me?”

Rosa’s whole face lit up and she gasped. “Yeah!”

It wasn’t that Diego didn’t think men could get their nails painted. He was fine with the whole gender non-comforming thing, even if he didn’t participate in it. No, that wasn’t why he was uncomfortable with getting his nails painted. It was just that the scent of nail polish brought back memories of a less happy time, before he was granted the name Diego and allowed to trade his uniform skirt in for the far better shorts.

That being said, Diego was never one to back down from a bit of discomfort. He was tasked with taking care of Rosa, and if that meant getting his nails painted, then so be it. So when Rosa picked out the brightest purple of the set, Diego put on the biggest smile he could and told her it was perfect.

They were called to the back and Diego quickly realized why there weren’t many other little kids in the nail salon: they’re horrible at keeping still. Rosa danced in her seat as they dipped their fingers in the warm water, humming a song that sounded vaguely familiar. When the women were trimming their cuticles, Rosa was talking their ears off, bouncing from topic to topic like before.

“So… seven colors?” one of the women asked Rosa, who nodded. “You can pick three colors to have on two fingers, okay?”

Rosa hummed and squirmed up into a kneeling position to inspect the colors she picked out. “These,” she said, letting her fingers dance over the neon pink, khaki green, and blood orange.

“Okay.” The woman smiled at her.

“And this purple is okay with you?” the other asked Diego.

“Y-Yeah. Thanks.”

“Uncle Diego,” Rosa chirped, taking her eyes away from her fingernails.

“Rosa,” Diego said, repeating her tone with a playful smile.

“Is purple your favorite color?”

_Not really._ “Yeah. Especially this purple. It’s really pretty.”

Rosa grinned at that and wiggled proudly. “Are you my mommy’s friend?”

Diego felt a flash of shock at the question, though he knew he shouldn’t have. It only made sense that she would ask that. “Er, yeah. Your mommy and I are friends.”

Rosa grinned. “We’re friends now.”

“Well, I’m glad,” he said with a warm smile in return.

“I’m going to be a dekt… a detk…” She frowned and huffed. “What mommy is. When I grow up.”

“Oh really? Detective Rosa?”

“Yeah! I’m gonna solve mysteries!”

Diego glanced at the plastic magnifying glass, which was sitting on the table. “You’d be really good at it.”

“I’m really smart,” she said, puffing her chest out. “I can count to twenty.”

“You can? How old are you?”

“Four,” she said brightly.

“Wow,” Diego chuckled. “You are really smart.”

  


By the time Diego got a text from Eudora with where to drop Rosa off, their nails were almost completely dry. Rosa, of course, got chips in the paint on two of her fingernails almost immediately. Diego tried his best not to look at his nails, though he was sure to smile at the right times and tell her he loved it.

“It’s time to go see your mommy,” Diego said, pulling on a bright smile.

Rosa gasped and clapped her hands at first, but then she deflated slightly. “What about you?”

“I’ll see her too,” he said with a bit of a question mark at the end of his sentence.

“No, no, no,” Rosa protested, making grabby hands up towards Diego, who complied and picked her up. “What about you?”

Diego paused for a moment, trying his best to decipher what she was saying. “After I drop you off, I’m gonna go bye-bye for a bit. But I’ll be back.”

“When?”

“I’m not sure yet. We can ask your mommy, though, when I drop you off.”

“Okay!”

Despite how spacey Rosa was before, she still remembered her question by the time they reached Eudora’s: “What about Uncle Diego?”

Eudora’s mouth opened slightly and she looked at Diego with an eyebrow raised. “Um… You’ll see him again soon.”

“When?”

Diego pressed his lips together to hide his smile, waiting for Eudora to give her an answer.

“How about… next week?”

That gave him pause. He wasn’t actually expecting her to set a date, especially not one that was so soon. “Next week?”

“Saturday at seven?” Eudora had shifted from talking to Rose, to talking to Diego—though the little girl didn’t notice.

Diego’s mouth went dry. He gently set Rosa on the ground and handed her the magnifying glass. “Really?”

Suddenly, Rosa grabbed Diego’s hand and started pulling as hard as she could. “I wanna show you my toys,” she whined, throwing her entire body into her struggle.

Diego chuckled and let her take him through the house and up to her room after shooting Eudora a look, silently promising he wouldn’t drop what they were talking about. When they reached the little girl’s room, she pushed him onto the bed and started bringing him stuffed animals one by one. Each had a name, and Diego was so busy trying to recall them and keep up that it took him a few minutes to notice Eudora was watching from the doorway, sporting a gentle smile.

“Rosa, sweetie,” she called, pulling the little girl’s attention towards her. “Go hang your jacket up, okay?”

“Okay!” Rosa patted the stuffed elephant that was in Diego’s lap, then ran off.

Diego smiled and gently set the elephant to the side. “So… I pick you up Saturday at seven?” He smirked up at her.

“You don’t have to—”

“No, no, I want to,” Diego said. “I really want to.”

Eudora’s smile grew and she stepped towards him. “Good. Me too.” There was a beat of silence, before she took a breath. “Here, let me walk you out.”

On his way to the front door, Diego made sure to say goodbye to Rosa. She was adamant that he promised to return on Saturday, and was only calmed when he linked his pinky finger with hers. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

Rosa nodded. “Do you think you can be my dad?”

Diego nearly choked on his own tongue. Thankfully, Eudora came to his rescue, ushering Rosa to go clean up her toys. “Say bye-bye to Uncle Diego!”

“Bye-bye Uncle Diego!”

Diego waved weakly. As soon as the little girl was out of sight, he leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes until Eudora’s voice startled him out of it. “I’m sorry about that,” she said softly.

He shook his head and peered at her. “It’s okay.”

“Do you like her?”

“Like her?” Diego laughed a bit to himself. “Well, I like her enough to get my nails painted. And to go through some dysphoria I haven’t felt in a while.”

“I’m s—”

Diego cut her off by shaking his head. “She’s a good kid. And… she’s four.” He raised his eyebrows.

“I… Yeah, she is.”

“Is she…?”

“Yours?”

Diego nodded.

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Diego suddenly pulled her into a tight hug. After getting over the initial shock, Eudora wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her face into his shoulder. When he stepped back, his eyes were glistening. He sniffed quietly and thumbed his nose, ducking his head. “I’ll see you Saturday at seven, okay?”

Eudora smiled at him and whispered, “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3 Comments and kudos are much appreciated!
> 
> Author's Note:
> 
> I'm really sorry to the people that are waiting for Chapter 2 of Take a Giant Step. I should be able to get it up soon, since school is starting to be normal.


End file.
